Cox Rayner founder Michael Rayner told the Courier Mail of the significance of winning the high-level competition, the kind typically won by the same people, who become well-known identities.

"So I guess I am saying we are not known to be in that league, so we must have won it through the design that we produced,” he said.

Rayner previously designed the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney, before moving to Queensland, "So I had a bit of knowledge in maritime museums, and that made sense that we might give it a good crack”, he said.